Red Sox open new season at Fenway

The Fenway festivities are a big hit Friday, but the Red Sox can't follow suit in a 6-2 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers.

Eric McHugh The Patriot Ledger

BOSTON – Look at it this way – apologizing for Edward Mujica is a lot easier than apologizing for Bobby Valentine and Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez and Josh Beckett.

Mujica made a hot mess of the Red Sox’s home opener Friday afternoon, turning a tie game into a 6-2 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers. That put a damper (only a slight one, though) on a day that was all about reliving, for one of the last times, the glory days of 2013.

This year’s Fenway curtain-raiser, which featured a World Series ring ceremony and a stirring tribute to both the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings and the two Boston firefighters who died in a Back Bay blaze March 26, was in stark contrast to last year’s home opener.

Despite Mujica’s meltdown (“He mislocated a couple of balls,” manager John Farrell said) and the fact that the Sox scratched out only five hits off four Brewers pitchers (“We couldn’t get anything going,” lamented Dustin Pedroia), the day wasn’t a total loss.

If you regret plunking down 40 bucks for a 2014 Opening Day T-shirt, you can try to keep the feel-good vibe of last October going by focusing on these bits of good news from Game 1 of the home slate:

Jake Peavy – Ten batters into the game, the Brewers already had hit for the cycle – triple by Jean Segura, solo home run by Jonathan Lucroy, double by Khris Davis, single by Carlos Gomez – and owned a 2-0 lead. But Peavy persevered and did not allow another run, leaving with a no-decision.

He worked six innings. They were hardly clean (six hits, two walks), but he stranded four runners in scoring position and made big pitches when needed.

“That’s fun to do,” Peavy said of wriggling out of trouble. “Because in spring training you’re working on stuff and even when you’re in a jam (there) you’re not (really) in it because it doesn’t matter. It feels good to make pitches when you need to, even when you don’t have your best stuff.”

Peavy, now 3-0 with a 3.18 ERA in five career starts at Fenway, continued a strong trend for the staff.

Red Sox starting pitchers have not allowed more than three runs in any of this year’s four games, posting a 3.33 ERA over 24 1/3 innings. “Another quality outing by a starter,” Farrell noted.

The only downside for Peavy – he couldn’t participate in the ring ceremony because he was in the bullpen getting ready.

Will Middlebrooks – After a slow start in Baltimore, he perked up with a 2-for-4 night Thursday that included a double and a run. Batting ninth, he added a solo home run in the third inning on Friday, blasting a pitch into the Monster seats.

“It’s an emotional day for everybody who was a part of that last year,” Middlebrooks said. “Home runs always feel good, but today was kind of a step above that. It felt good. I’m just glad I put a good swing on the ball.”

The subject of much offseason speculation (Were the Sox souring on him? If they resigned Stephen Drew would Xander Bogaerts move to third, leaving Middlebrooks the odd man out?) he responded by leading the team in hitting in spring training at .353. “Yeah, definitely,” he said when asked if he had taken any momentum up north with him. “My biggest thing is my body feels really good. I’m in a good place.”

Now hitting .231, he lined out to center in the fifth and was intentionally walked with two outs and a runner on second in the seventh. How often do you see a No. 9 hitter walked to get to the leadoff man?

Grady Sizemore – The resurrection continues. You might have heard that he missed all of the last two seasons with injuries and hasn’t played more than 71 games in a season since 2009. But he was on base three times with a single and two walks and even chipped in his first stolen base since May 11, 2010 – a span of 1,424 days. It was also the first Red Sox steal in this post-Jacoby Ellsbury world.

The best news for Sizemore, who’s hitting .300 (3 for 10), was that in his pregame chat Farrell talked as though it’s when, not if, the 31-year-old becomes an everyday player for the Sox, minus the playing-time restrictions he’s operating under now. “We’re building up to that,” Sizemore said, “and I think we’re close. I feel I could do that right now, but it might not be the smartest thing.”

Was that enough to wipe away the stain of the Brewers’ brutal four-run ninth?

Maybe on this day, everyone could be a little forgiving.

After all, there were real-life heroes, video tributes, a helicopter flyover and blinding World Series rings that each included 126 diamonds, 16 custom-cut sapphires and nine custom-cut rubies.